DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. Ill 



and again to the charge. In Canada they are infinitely 

 worse. " I have sat down to write," says Lambert, (who 

 though he calls it the house-fly is evidently speaking of 

 the Stomoxys,) " and have been obliged to throw 

 away my pen in consequence of their irritating bite, which 

 has obliged me every moment to raise my hand to my 

 eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in constant succession. 

 When I could no longer write, I began to read, and 

 was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the 

 move towards my head. Sometimes in the course of a 

 few minutes I would take half a dozen of my tormentors 

 from my lips, between which I caught them just as they 

 perched a ." 



The swallow-fly {Ornithomyia Hirundinis, Latr. 

 Hippobosca, L.), whose natural food is the bird after 

 which it is named, has been known to make its repast on 

 the human species. One found its way into a bed of 

 the Rev. R. Sheppard, where it first, for several nights, 

 sorely annoyed a friend of his, and afterwards himself, 

 without their suspecting the culprit. After a close 

 search, however, it was discovered in the form of this 

 fly, which, forsaking the nest of the swallow, had by 

 some chance taken its station between the sheets, and 

 thus glutted itself with the blood of man. — In travelling 

 beteen Edam and Purmerend in North Holland (July 21, 

 1815), in an open vehicle, I was much teased by another 

 bird-fly [Ornithomyia avicularia, Latr.) (two individuals 

 of which I caught) alighting upon my head, and insert- 

 ing its rostrum into my flesh. — Mr. Sheppard remarks, 

 as a reason for this dereliction of their appropriate food, 

 that no sooner does life depart from the bird that these 

 * Travels, &c.i. 126. 



